Kemback's Alerts and Weekly Summary: What to Turn On
A guide to Kemback's six alerts and the Monday weekly summary: what each one watches, sensible thresholds to start with, and how to get them by email or iPhone.
The best money app is one you don’t have to check every day. Alerts let Kemback do the watching: it tells you when a category is running hot, when a large charge goes through, when a fee appears, when a balance drops too low or when a bill is about to fall due. The weekly summary rounds it up in one email on Monday mornings.
The trick is to turn on the right ones. Too few and you miss things; too many and you start ignoring them. This guide explains each alert, suggests where to start, and shows how to choose where they reach you.
Where to find them
Open Alerts from the sidebar. The page has three cards:
- What to tell you about: the six alerts, each with a tick box and, for most, a threshold.
- Weekly summary: the Monday email.
- Recent alerts: what you’ve been told, newest first.
Alerts are personal. As the page says, “These are yours: other members choose their own.” If you share a household, your partner can turn on a completely different set without affecting yours.
When you tick an alert, it watches from that moment on. Turning one on never alerts you about things that happened before, so you won’t get a flood of old news.
The six alerts
Over budget
When a category’s spending reaches this share of its budget. It starts at 100%, meaning you hear about it when a category is fully spent.
Try: 90%. A warning when there’s still 10% left gives you time to slow down. For a $600 grocery budget, that’s an alert at $540. Each category alerts once a month, not every time you shop after that.
Unusual spending
When a category’s month passes this share of its usual month. It starts at 150%: if you usually spend $200 a month on Shopping and you’re at $300 by mid-month, you hear about it.
This one needs some history to know what “usual” is, so it becomes useful once you’ve imported a few months. It’s good for categories you don’t budget closely, where an over-budget alert wouldn’t fire.
Try: leave it at 150% at first. If it’s too chatty, raise it to 200%.
Large purchase
Any single purchase of at least this much. It starts at $500.
This doubles as a fraud check: if a charge you don’t recognize goes through, you hear about it once the transaction is in Kemback.
Try: a figure that would surprise you. For many households, $250 to $500 works. Set it too low and routine grocery runs will trigger it.
Bank fees
Any bank fee: overdraft, ATM, service and late fees. There’s no threshold; every fee counts.
Try: turn it on. Fees are small, but they’re avoidable, and hearing about each one is often enough to stop the next. If a monthly service fee keeps appearing, it might be worth asking your bank about a fee-free account.
Low balance
When a checking, savings or cash account drops below this. It starts at $100.
You hear about it once when the balance drops below your threshold, and not again until it has recovered and dropped again. The threshold can be negative, which is useful for an account with an overdraft line.
Try: your rent or mortgage payment, or whatever your largest regular bill is. Knowing you’re below $1,500 a week before rent is due is more useful than knowing you’re below $100 the day after.
Bill due
This many days before a bill is due. It starts at 3 days, and you can set anything from 0 to 31.
It works from the bills you’ve added on the Bills page, and only for bills that haven’t been paid yet.
Try: 3 days for bills paid from a well-funded account; 5 to 7 days if you need time to move money first.
Changing a threshold
Type the new value in the box next to an alert and press Enter, or click away. Percentages are whole numbers (90, not 0.9), money is an amount like 250.00, and days are a number. If something doesn’t make sense, Kemback says so and keeps the old value.
How alerts reach you
Kemback checks for new alerts every 15 minutes. Each alert fires once per event: one alert for a particular large purchase, one per category per month for over budget.
In the app
New alerts show as a count next to Alerts in the sidebar, in the Recent alerts card on the Alerts page, and on the Overview page. Mark all read clears the count. Check now runs a check straight away instead of waiting for the next one, handy right after an import.
By email
Tick Email me new alerts (one email per check, never with account numbers). If three alerts come up in the same check, you get one email, not three.
On your iPhone
Tick Notify my phones too. This sends a notification to any phone where the Kemback iPhone app (in beta) has notifications turned on. The notification only says how many new alerts there are, never amounts or account details, so nothing sensitive appears on a lock screen. Open the app to see the details.
The weekly summary
The Weekly summary card describes it: “One email on Monday mornings: this month’s spending against budget, what’s over, fees in the last week and bills due in the next.”
Tick Email me a weekly summary. Kemback shows when the next one will arrive, for example (next: Monday, Nov 2).
To see what it looks like before committing, choose Preview this week’s. The subject and body of this week’s email appear right on the page, built from your real numbers.
Every summary email has a one-click link to stop it, so there’s no hunting through settings if you change your mind. Like alerts, it never includes account numbers.
The summary is a good habit-builder. A five-minute Monday look at spending against budget and the week’s bills is often all the money management a household needs.
Suggested setups
“Just keep me out of trouble”
- Bank fees: on
- Low balance: on, set to your largest regular bill
- Bill due: on, 3 days
- Weekly summary: on
“I’m working on my budget”
- Over budget: on, 90%
- Unusual spending: on, 150%
- Bill due: on, 3 days
- Weekly summary: on
“Tell me everything”
- All six on, with Large purchase at $250
- Email and phone notifications on
For a viewer or advisor
Members who can look but not change things can still turn on alerts for themselves. A parent helping an adult child, for example, might turn on only Low balance and Bank fees.
A note on timing
On the free plan, new transactions arrive when you import a file from your bank, so alerts about spending and fees fire after each import rather than the moment you tap your card. Automatic bank sync is coming with the Plus plan. Bill due and the weekly summary depend on dates rather than imports, so they arrive on time either way.
Start small
If you’re unsure, turn on three alerts and the weekly summary, live with them for a month, then adjust. An alert you act on is worth ten you swipe away.
This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. For decisions about your situation, talk to a qualified professional.
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